It’s ‘High Noon’ for Pro Se Plaintiffs, Judge Says

(CN) – A federal judge slammed two pro se plaintiffs who filed thousands of pages of exhibits alongside a 40-page motion, saying “there is a new sheriff in town – not Gary Cooper, but me.” Saied and Bijan Tadayon sued Greyhound Lines in Washington, D.C., claiming that the long-distance bus service used wireless technology that infringed on their patent. They filed a motion to compel in 2011, claiming that Greyhound failed to respond to their discovery requests on time and engaged in “delay tactics.” They asked the court to sanction Greyhound for its behavior and award them attorneys’ fees. While U.S. District Judge John Facciola agreed that Greyhound failed to respond to the plaintiffs requests, he found that Greyhound’s delays did not merit sanctions. “Whatever delay defendant may have caused was minor and ultimately did not prejudice plaintiffs in any way,” Facciola wrote. In addition, “the time a pro se lawyer spends on her own case is not reimbursable,” the decision states. Rather, “plaintiffs will be ordered to show cause why a sanction, in the form of attorney’s fees, should not be awarded against them for the time defendant spent opposing plaintiffs’ motion to compel,” Facciola wrote. The opinion concludes with a section titled “High Noon.” “There is a new sheriff in town – not Gary Cooper, but me,” Facciola wrote. “The filing of forty-page discovery motions accompanied by thousands of pages of exhibits will cease and will now be replaced by a new regimen in which the parties, without surrendering any of their rights, must make genuine efforts to engage in the cooperative discovery regimen.”